Monday Jolt: Madison Market and PCC

Our daily winners and losers.

Two local co-op groceries, PCC and Madison Market, have decided to continue carrying Eden Foods' products, despite the fact that the brand is a plaintiff in the lawsuit that, under last week's Supreme Court ruling, ended up allowing companies to deny women access to certain forms of contraception, like IUDs, that are covered by the Affordable Care Act, on the grounds that such birth control methods constitute abortion. (IUDs cost up to $1,000 without insurance.)

Both Seattle-based companies responded that they felt they should continue selling Eden Foods products despite their anti-science views In response to consumers' complaints, PCC wrote, "While we personally may disagree with Eden Foods’ view, Eden also has been an industry leader for decades by advocating and maintaining the highest organic standards and by bringing BPA-free packaging to the U.S. market. PCC believes we can best serve our communities by focusing on providing healthy foods, without taking a stance on the politics of this particular issue.

"However, we do encourage you to vote on this (and other issues) with your shopping dollars by supporting companies you like and believe in, and avoiding those you don’t. When products don’t sell well, they disappear from store shelves."

Madison Market and PCC are giving the anti-choice company more latitude than Eden Foods is willing to give women.

Meanwhile, Central Co-Op, which owns Madison Market on Capitol Hill, responded to concerns with the following, extremely similar, press release: "While many of us may not personally agree with Eden’s stance on this particular issue, Eden Foods has been an industry leader in maintaining organic standards and bringing BPA-free packaging to the U.S. market, directly supporting our Co-op’s purpose through their pioneering product offering. At this point in time, we feel that it would be doing a disservice to our community to remove high quality products that meet our guidelines in so many critical ways from our product offering.

"In cases like this one, we encourage our owners and customers to vote with their dollars by supporting those companies that they like and believe in."

The irony in both statements, of course, is that by giving consumers a choice to boycott Eden Soy rather than taking if off their shelves, Madison Market and PCC are giving the anti-choice company more latitude than Eden soy is willing to give women.

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